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What do you do when the bottom drops out and life breaks in ways you never imagined? Charlie and Jill LeBlanc have walked that road, and through their personal story of loss, they’ve discovered the sustaining power of God's presence. In this podcast, they offer heartfelt conversations, Scripture-based encouragement, and the kind of hope that only comes from experience. Whether you're grieving, struggling, or searching for peace in the middle of chaos, this space is for you.
Hi and welcome. This is the Finding Hope podcast. We're Charlie and Jill LeBlanc and we are so grateful that you've joined us today. We want to continue talking about the God of all comfort because where would we be without Him? my goodness. All of us that have walked through difficult times, we found more than ever how much we have thrown ourselves on Him because we've needed that.
Yes. And before we go on, I wanted to talk about our book. I want to mention it. When loss comes close to home, this is a book of comfort. And the whole first half is written to those of you that have experienced loss on any level. Really, we talk mostly about losing a loved one, but it applies in any situation. And then the second half of the book is written to those who
are walking beside the one who has lost. And just to learn how to be a better comforter, how to let the God of all comfort touch your friend through you. So we want you to get this. If you haven't gotten it yet, you can go to our website, Charlieandjill.com. You can get it on Amazon. It's also available on audio form as well as Kindle form. And so we want you to make sure.
get hold of that. We'd like to invite you to join our email list. We put out encouraging content. And that's something that the Lord has called us to all these years when we were mostly doing ministry and music, as well as now ministry with for for grievers is encouraging the body of Christ, whether it be through worshiping the Lord through his word and song or preaching.
And now through sharing about how we can be better comforters to others and how the God of all comfort holds you in your grief. join our email list and let's stay connected that way. And don't forget to share this episode with your friends that may need it as well. Yeah. And, I want to say a quick word about partnership too. know, Jill and I, as we've taken a step
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faith into this new ministry of ministering to people who have gone through losses. It's a new season for us and you know so we're not out doing as many worship nights and ministry in churches and things like we used to do with our music ministry. We're focusing a lot on just ministering through this podcast, putting out newsletters and materials to help people who are grieving. So if you
are able to support us on a regular basis that would be so helpful because it has been a different season for us to not have the regular income that we do from all of our traveling so if you could that would be a great blessing to us. Yeah it's like we've become missionaries to hurting people and so that just like a missionary that lives in another country we get to live in in our home country but we are missionaries to help
comfort grieving people. That's right. And our hearts are to continue to minister to you and help you in your journey of grief. So we have this teaching that I did on a USB. Actually, we have it available to you called the God of all comfort, but we wanted to share it with our podcast listeners. And it's on this USB, along with a lot of other great materials on it.
But we encourage you to just sit back and listen. I poured my heart out in this teaching. I ministered everything that I had concerning the God of all comfort and just how much God loves us and walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. So we encourage you to sit back and let this minister to you. And we pray that if you have any questions, any concerns, anything that we can do to help you.
please just let us know in the comments. We're going to close out with this teaching and then we'll just look for you next Tuesday as well, okay? And let me just say real quickly, this is available through our website. You didn't say that, did you? I did not. Yeah, so charlieandjill.com. You can order it there. We've heard from others that have gotten it and that it's just a real comfort. just ministers a lot of peace.
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And so you can grab that for yourself or for someone you know that could use a message of peace and comfort. it has the teaching, nature videos, scriptures, the devotional, even a soundtrack to a song that you can sing along about the God of all comfort. So God bless you and enjoy the teaching.
Listen, I have some things I want to share with you now about the God of All Comfort.
I want to start with a scripture out of 2 Corinthians, the first chapter and the third verse. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
16 years ago, we lost our son to cancer after a nine month battle We prayed we sought the Lord We believed God We went to we got medical help from the Mayo clinics We we did everything we knew to do we had scriptures everywhere standing and believing but unfortunately We didn't win that battle on this side of
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but we know that our son went straight to heaven. But let me just say this, the reason I'm talking to you about the God of all comfort is because I didn't understand this aspect of God until this tragedy came and knocked at our door. We didn't understand comfort like we do now. But God's heart and attribute of comfort
just exploded in our hearts. I had never seen him that way. I'd seen him as a miracle worker. I'd seen him as one who walks in water. I saw him as, you know, the one who forgives all my sins, the Redeemer, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. I loved him. I worshiped him. He was my father and my friend. But when I read this scripture after we lost our dearest son, Bo,
My heart leapt because I had not seen God as a comforter. I knew the Holy Spirit was a comforter and so forth, but I just hadn't seen this amazing title, the Father of Mercies, the God of all comfort. And he goes on to say he comforts us in all of our trouble. I'm telling you what, when I read that after we had lost Bo,
and we were broken, we were hurting, we were crying, our belief system was shattered. Everything in our world was just shattered to the ground. It was just awful. For those of you who have lost loved ones, dear loved ones, maybe a child, a mother, father, sister, brother, you understand what I'm talking about. Most people don't understand how hard it is.
when you really love someone to go through. I don't mean to be breaking up like this on this video, but it just happens sometimes when I'm talking about this. But my heart is to help you. In fact, it goes on to say here in First Corinthians, Second Corinthians rather, the fourth chapter, the first chapter, fourth verse, forgive me.
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who comforts us in all of our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the same comfort which we ourselves are comforted of God. He comforts us in all of our troubles and now he has asked Jill and I to do our best to comfort you. And that's my heart today. If you're in pain, if you've lost a loved one and you're hurting inside, I'm praying, I'm trusting God.
that I'm going to be able to help you, that the Holy Spirit, maybe the words that come out of my mouth, but the Holy Spirit will be able to comfort you and help you and give you strength to get through this very dark time in your life. So this scripture just means so much to me. He's the God of all comfort. He comforts us. The Bible says that He comforts all who mourn. Isaiah 61 says He heals.
broken hearts and comforts those who mourn. Wow! That's amazing. I hadn't seen him as that. In fact, I needed that so desperately. I didn't understand all the things about God after we lost Bo. I was confused. I was angry. I was upset. I was so disorientated. But when I remembered that he comforts those who mourn,
I remembered that He does heal broken hearts and I needed that. We all needed that. My two daughters, my wife, we were so broken and little did I realize both cousins, my nephews, nieces, my mom and dad, friends, family, they were all so broken. We all needed, as you may need right now, the God of all comfort.
It still blows me away to this day that that is one of his main titles. You know, when you hurt like we were hurting, you need someone to help you. You need someone to come alongside of you and minister to you and love you and help you. And that's what the Holy Spirit, the God of all comfort does. As I mentioned,
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Matthew 5 for blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. He blesses those who mourn. He doesn't rebuke those who mourn. He blesses you if you're hurting and mourning over a loved one. God wants to be a part of your pain. He wants to be part of your journey. He's not afraid of pain. God is not afraid when we're hurting.
He doesn't back off like some people do when we're hurting really bad, if we're crying or if someone has sinned or something or going through a divorce or whatever. People avoid them because they don't know what to say, they don't know what to do. But that's not Jesus. Jesus runs to us when we're in pain. He's there with us. In fact, Psalm 23, what does it say? says, yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
I will fear no evil, David said, for thou art with me. David even knew that his God, his loving father, walked with him through the valley. And David went through some very difficult times. But God didn't forsake him. God didn't run from him. Just as Adam and Eve, when they sinned, God didn't run from them. No, God was in the garden saying, Adam!
Where are you? Where are you? His love for Adam is shown in that statement. Where are you? And I'm telling you what, there were times when God spoke that to me because I was so hurt and so hardened. And God said, Charlie, where are you? Come to me. And I remember thinking about the disciples when Jesus had spoken to them about, you know, drink my blood and
eat my flesh and everybody left and he turned to his disciples and said, are you going to leave too? And Peter turned to him and he said, Lord, where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life. And that's something that the Lord spoke to me as well is just that I had to run to Jesus. didn't understand him, but I had to run to him. I began to see God in a total different light. I began to see the God of compassion.
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Hebrews 415 says this, says, for we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. Now listen to that. We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched. God is touched with your pain. He feels your pain. He runs to you when you're hurting. It says here that
In the New King James it says, do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. He has sympathy for our weaknesses. He cares. He comes. He holds us in our pain. Matthew 9.36, when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion. I love this thought that God is touched with our pain and he is
moved with compassion when we're hurting. Isn't that an amazing God? An amazing Jesus moved and touched by our pain, by our infirmities, by our...
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In fact, that reminds me of a scripture in Isaiah. It says, all their suffering, he himself also suffered. That's Isaiah 63, 9. Did you hear that? In all their suffering, he himself also suffered. Gosh, that is so amazing to me that when I'm suffering, God suffers.
But you know it makes sense. He's a father. We're his sons. When my, when little Bo would, he fell many times and got stitches many times. It was so, it became almost like, I don't want to say comical, but it was horrible. But, but he just, he was such an aggressive young little boy that he would fall and bust his head. He had stitches more times in his head. But guess what?
We didn't rebuke him. We didn't yell at him. We held him. We held him closely. We wiped his wounds and we took care of him. We suffered when he suffered. And that reminds me of the Good Samaritan. It says that this man was beaten up and thrown aside and half dead. And a Samaritan came by after others.
just walked by him. A Samaritan came by and it says that he went and he picked him up. He cleansed him, cleansed his wounds with wine and oil and then he picked him up and he put him on his animal, whatever he had, donkey probably. And he led him into town, into a hotel, a nun and he brought him in. And the Bible says the next morning he left.
Guess what? He spent the night with them. That's our God. This is an example of God. spent the night with them and he held him and he made sure he was being getting better. And that's what God does with us. He doesn't leave us. He sticks with us as he sees us getting better. He'll stick with you through all the difficulty, through all the pain. But Jesus feels our hurt.
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I'm thinking about the tomb of Lazarus. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus. Mary and Martha were the sisters of Lazarus. They were crying. They were broken. All the Jews were crying. Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead, but when he approached the tomb and he saw them weeping, he saw Mary and he saw her weeping, it says.
It says he was moved deeply within him. He was troubled. It said, where have you laid him? And the Bible says next in John 11, 35, that famous scripture, Jesus wept. I'll tell you what, that shows something about Jesus. He wept. He weeps when we weep.
He wept because he saw the pain of humanity. He was touched with our feelings in that moment. He was touched with Mary and Martha's feelings. He wept because he saw death. How horrible it is to people and to humanity. Of course, thank God he raised Lazarus because he had the power to do it and he has the power to do it today as well. But the important thing for you to understand if you've lost a loved one.
is that Jesus weeps with you. I believe he does weep with us. In fact, one day I was in my home in St. Louis. We've moved since, but we were out. I was out on a deck and we had this little table with chairs and an umbrella on out on our wood deck. And I was sitting under it just thinking about Bo and praying. And all of sudden I just began to weep. I began to f-
breakdown which was very common by the way in those days. We cried so much I can't even I can't even tell you how much we cried buckets buckets buckets of tears and so this was another one of those moments I just needed a little break from inside the house working and I walked out on this patio and I'm just sitting there underneath this umbrella and I'm just weeping missing Bo loving Bo just just you know the
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Someone said the amount that you love someone will be equal to the amount that you mourn and grieve and cry. And we loved him so much. But I was weeping there and all of sudden a cloud came over this umbrella and boosh, the rain started, a trickling rain. And it was a beautiful rain actually. And it caught me by surprise and I thought, well thank God I'm under the umbrella, you know. But I sat there and I went,
went, wow, this is interesting. And all of a sudden I felt the Lord speak to my heart. He said, Charlie, when you weep, I weep. When you weep, I weep. And he was showing me the rain as part of his tears falling down from heaven, weeping with me. We wept a lot, as I told you. And I read across this scripture, ran across this scripture in Psalms 6, 6 and 7.
Well, the Psalmist David said, am worn out from my sobbing all night. flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears. My vision is blurred by grief. My eyes are worn out because of all my enemies. I'm telling you what, I can relate to this. Those of you who have been through the loss of a dear loved one, you can relate to this. I was times I was just worn out from sobbing.
But in a sense when I did have a good cry, somehow I felt better after it, although I was wore out, but I felt better. There was something about just giving my heart to God and crying and grieving over this situation that helped receive the comfort, helped me receive the comfort of God.
I even went to my doctor and I said, Doc, you've to help me. I said, I don't know what's going wrong with me. I said, I don't know if this is okay or not, but I'm crying all the time. I said, do you have anything to help me, doctor? Because he was a Christian doctor who I knew very well. And he said, Charlie, I could give you this, I could give you that, could give you antidepressants. He said, but I'm just telling you, what you're going through is normal.
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And you don't need all of these drugs to help you. Just go ahead, cry it out, cry in the arms of Jesus and just hang in there and it'll get better as you move forward. And it did. I just hung in there and cried. The old song says, it's my party. I'll cry if I want to. I cried whenever I wanted to. As a matter of fact, I was a little bit afraid that, you know, in my
church situation and my believers that I hang about with that they would think I was weak that they would think there's something wrong with you Charlie you need to have more faith well that's a bunch of bull I studied the scripture and found out that great men of God all over the Bible wept bitterly David's great mighty men wept bitterly when their wives and children were taken away it goes on and on of great men of God weeping Paul the Apostle shows us he wept
many times he would have sorrowed. Well, there's many great scriptures. I'll get into that at some other teaching. But weeping is not a sign of weakness. It can be a sign of love. And that's exactly what it was for me and I know for you as well. I ran across a little article by a brother named Tony Cook, actually, that said it's OK to cry.
And man, when I read that, that set me free because I knew that great men of God, they said even at the tomb or the funeral of Stephen, when Stephen was stoned, as you remember, but even at the tomb there, it said they mourned greatly for him. You know, it's normal to mourn and to grieve over the loss of a loved one.
As I read that scripture early, I'll read it again. says, all their suffering, he also suffered. And I was reading a devotional by Andrew Womack last year. Well, won't. I'm timing this video when I say things like that. he said, the Lord deeply feels our hurts when he hurts. I'm sorry. He feels our hurts when we hurt. When we hurt, he hurts.
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The Lord deeply feels our hurts. When we hurt, He hurts. And when we are blessed, He is blessed. That reminds you of the scripture in Romans that we read. It says that to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice. And we are to realize that weeping is normal for the loss of a loved one especially.
that weeping and mourning and grief is normal. So know that the God of all comfort will be with you and stand with you through that. The rest of this, Isaiah 63, nine is very special too. It says here that he lifted them up and he carried them through all the years. That jumped out of the page at me as well, that he carries me because I don't know about you, but when I was broken that whole.
that much, needed God to help me and carry me, which reminded me of that little poem called Footprints in the Sand. And if you don't mind, I'm just going to read it real quickly for you, for those of you who haven't heard of it. Footprints in the Sand by Mary Stevenson, 1939. It says, one night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life just flashed across the sky.
In each scene, I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints. Other times there were just one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during those low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints. So I said to the Lord, you promised me that if I followed you, you would walk with me always.
But I've noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why Lord, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me? The Lord replied, the times you have seen only one set of footprints is when I carried you. Now, you know, I must confess.
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But that touches me deeply today. But I must confess that back before I lost Bo, when I read pretty little poems like this, I would go, oh, that's sweet. But that's just for some of the young kids and some of the young women. he carries you one set of footprints in the sand. But I'm telling you what, when you get broken,
by the loss of a loved one, you become weak and you become like a little child in a lot of ways. And I tell you, this means a lot to me because there were days when we could not walk. There were days when we could not get out of bed. There were days when the grief was so hard. The pain of the loss was so terrible. Then I ran across this in Psalm 68 and 19. I'd read this scripture for years.
That in the King James, which says he daily loathes us with benefits which praise God he does hallelujah But I read it in the New Living it says praise the Lord praise God our Savior for each day He carries us in his arms and I went wow. Yeah He does and I'm grateful for that today Listen, I just want you to know if you're hurting today
that he is close to you. The scripture says he is close to the broken hearted. Jesus never rebuked anyone for a broken heart. He rebuked his disciples at times for a hardened heart. He rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducees for their hardened, hypocritical hearts. But anyone that came to Jesus that was hurting, he never rebuked them. He healed broken hearts.
He heals broken hearts. He does not rebuke broken hearts. The woman with the issue of blood came to him. She was healed. A broken woman. Another woman that was caught in adultery. He didn't condemn her. No, he had compassion on her. She had a broken life, a broken heart. The woman that cried at his feet and washed his feet with her tears. Beautiful.
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He didn't rebuke her. Everybody else said, rebuke her. No, he didn't rebuke her.
Jesus doesn't rebuke broken hearts. He holds, He heals, He's close to you and to me if we have a broken heart. Let me read you just one last scripture that really just touches me deeply. It's out of Isaiah 43-4.
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It says, since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored and I have loved you.
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Let me read one last scripture for you today out of Isaiah 42, three in the Amplified. says a bruised read. He will not break and a dimly burning wick. He will not quench. He will bring forth justice in truth. Joe wrote a song about this many years ago. We'll have to play it for you. Sometimes it's called a bruise read.
But this scripture just has come alive to us. She wrote this before we lost Bo. But I mean to tell you, this has helped us so much. A bruised reed, he will not break. A dimly burning wick, he will not quench. If you're barely hanging on, I want you to know that God is there to help you. He's not going to blow out your little flickering candle. He's there to love you, to hold you.
to minister to you, to help you as the God of all comfort. I said that was my last scripture. Do you mind if I read one more?
It says in Isaiah 43,4, since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored and I have loved you. God loves you so much. You are precious in this sight. He's the God of all comfort and he will comfort you in your pain and in your distress. Look to him, lean on him, get to know him as the comforter, the God of all comfort. Let me pray for you.
Father, I thank you for all of my friends who are listening to this tape, Lord, to this video, to this MP3. God, that you would touch their hearts, that you would minister your love, your grace, your compassion, and your comfort to them, Father. So many people here who are hurting, so many people who have felt what we're feeling. But Lord, what's beautiful is you feel what we feel. And so God, I pray.
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In the name of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, would be with them right now. And just may your peace that passes all understanding just fall on them. The comfort of the Holy Spirit, your love, Father, we pray all over them to strengthen them, to help them get through this difficult time. In the name of Jesus, I pray, amen. Amen.